Having trouble with MTT. Any suggestions?

Well I have been playing online poker with pokerstars for about a month now. I have been following this site for quite some time though. So here is my situation:

-Tried cash games and wasn't successful.

-Small bankroll of $50, advice on what I should be playing? (As in tournament times and the cost)

-I plan on playing multi-table tournaments. First one that I played I placed in 75th place and won $18, but that is when I had a bigger bankroll. Lost most of it trying to do stupid decisions.

-I just need a well thought out plan that will get me through the tournaments. I want to try to make it in the money more (obviously).

Anything to make is easier to understand for me. Appreciate the advice.

-Jake

How much time do you want to spend on a single tournament? Obviously the larger $1.10 & $2.20 tournaments can run 6-8 hours while the 45man, 90man, 180man SNGs will run shorter.

Well I just graduated high school this past year and I am leaving for the Air Force in December. While I am waiting for that I saved money from a summer job, so now that summer is over with I have all of the time in the world. I usually play from waking up until going to bed. I usually wake up at 6 in the morning central time and go to bed around 10 or 11.

try small tourneys. on full tilt there is 1 dollar games with first place paying 1600 so if ur good enough u should be able to make it deep and cash a few times if not maybe a win could come

On poker stars Id say stick with big field mtts that are 3$ and below. Get experience going deep and getting a lot of chips, and at the same time you won;t blow your br on big mtts

Okay I will try these out tonight and I will see how far I get into them. Hopefully I don't bubble or not make it to the money, but I guess that happens anyways.

jakeras10 said:

Hopefully I don't bubble or not make it to the money, but I guess that happens anyways.

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Definitely. Even skilled MTT regulars don`t generally cash more than one time in five.

Well I have played 3 tournaments and I didn't even place in the money in them..

I don't really go in with a strategy I just play and I play with a poker calculator..

I don't know what else to try, but I wanna try and make couple good profits and expand my money into other tournaments, so does anyone have any advice or strategies I should try.

I spend my day at home full-time right now, so I have plenty of time to do anything. Even if that means making a couple hundred dollars.

Read some books...read some online MTT strategies...read, read, and read some more. Harrington on Holdem, Super System, just pick your favorite poker pro. I'm sure they've all wrote or contributed to something. Also start off learning the basics. Play good hands in good position. A 4 suited from UTG is not a good hand in a good position. Learn why. Play straight forward. Good hand bet and bad hand check, fold. Start small and simple and then slowly mix in slowly the strategies that you learn from reading. All of us are trying to get better. From the oldest to the youngest. But your on the right start. Losing money is a great motivator. GL!

On PokerStars, must-play games for micro-bankrolls are the $0.10 buy-in with $50 added every day at 0400, 1000 and 1600 hours EST, and the $0.25 buy-in with $100 added at 2200 hours EST. These are turbo games. Wait patiently, and go all-in with premium hands during the early stages; you will always get a caller or two (which is why you wait for the best possible hands). Easy to make the money, and a recent first place pay-out of $105 for the $0.25 shows that the ROI is incredible.

Search the forum and look up strategy guides. Realize early on, however, that the only way to go deep in a tourney is to avoid bad beats, and give others bad beats. Or in other words, if you only play premium hands in typical tournies (not like the turbos I named above), then you will only receive bad beats. You have to get donk-lucky every now and then to go far.

Would you guys suggest rebuy and addon games or should I just stick to the regular one buy-in?

deff do the rebuys if you have the bankroll for it, but there is a different way to play rebuys compared to regular.. i.e. playing more agrro in early stages, etc... check out harrington's book on tournaments, i found it worth while and he explains alot of important concepts such as your "M", hands to play in what position at what time, stuff like that

-----bryce said:

try small tourneys. on full tilt there is 1 dollar games with first place paying 1600 so if ur good enough u should be able to make it deep and cash a few times if not maybe a win could come

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I've watched the final table of that DailyDonker play out... curious to see if the play gets much better deep into it. Mmm... not. Therefore I don't think 'if ur good enough' is a necessary prerequisite to go deep in the DailyDonker (it'll help but it's a HUGE minefield of donks... gd hands will need to hold up & you'll need to get lucky on occassion obviously).

If you're super keen on getting better at MTT play, it's way too difficult to give you a brief summary of things you should consider/keep in mind/attempt to do, etc. etc. (honestly it'd take me 10pages just to make it brief).
I'd suggest reading a few books on MTT NLHE play, starting with Phil Gordon's Little Green Book, then read the Harrington On Holdem Vol.1 & 2 on 'Tournament play'. This will give you a decent foundation in which to work from & will put you ahead of the majority of the field in something like the DailyDonker.

jakeras10 said:

Would you guys suggest rebuy and addon games or should I just stick to the regular one buy-in?

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You're not really bankrolled for them from the sounds of it but yah.. they are pretty decent.
Rebuy period of the tourney is different obviously.... there'll be players who seem to be playing crazy (but aren't... i know.. sounds odd).. and others who play really spewy during rebuy... and others who won't adjust to any of it.
The thing about rebuys is > you really need to acquire a stack for the next portion of the tourney (in a 1500 chip micro online you'd want min. 4,500 after rebuy portion,.. preferably more... shooting for 5-7k range). Rebuys are basically a deepstacked tourney that starts after the rebuy period is done. It'll favour the more skilled players (to put it simply).

jakeras10 said:

I spend my day at home full-time right now, so I have plenty of time to do anything. Even if that means making a couple hundred dollars.

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Spend as much time reading/studying as you are playing is my advice (for now),.. but don't go overboard as there's a ton of info. you'll be picking up & it all becomes sort of intuitive as time goes on.

Rule 1 - stick to decent bankroll management (lots of threads on this topic in the forum... for a reason)

Cut down on the amount of time you are playing. There is no way you can be playing your best after 12 hours. It sounds like you need to do more studying of the game as well. Review some of your tournies, and while you are playing, try to figure out how a player played a past hand, even the one's you are not in.

I find the 45man SNGs good for building a bankroll and they are a mircocosim (sp) of bigger MTT with the beginning, middle and end game in a short time span.

Well I finally placed in a $2 tournament even though it might not sound like much, but I got 335th place and got $3.42. So hopefully I can use this strategy and improve my game. I realized that earlier in the game I tried to play too many hands, so at least I am realizing what I am doing wrong.

I found Harrington's M-Zones invaluable for indicating when to change your approach through the tournament.

I'm not looking at the book right now, but this is basically how I use them:

M=your stack divided by (blinds+antes)

M>20:You can play your basic solid game. Speculating is ok in position with suited connectors and pairs. Even Axs if it's cheap and some limpers.

20>M>10:Your stack is getting too low to do as much speculating. Unless you can limp with a small pair, you should probably avoid any cards lower than 8. Raise with high cards, but if you're reraising, you may have to go all in.

10>M>5:If you raise now, you pretty much have to be committed to going all the way with this hand. You don't have enough chips to fold to a reraise. For me, this is the tightest part of the tournament.

5>M>1:Only play now is to go all in. You'd like to be the one who opens the pot. If not, you need the goods because you will be called.

M<1retty much done -- pretty much shoving any 2 cards if you're the first one in the pot. My range actually gets quite wide once down to 3 Ms, because the next blind level will likely put you near 1.

This is pretty widespread stuff, so you can look at other player's stacks too, and have an idea of how they might be playing.

Hope this helps -- good luck!

So I tried out Shufflin's Strategy and it wasn't that bad. Actually had a good result in a 90 player sng. Buy-in was $0.25 and I placed 4th and got $2.13 in return.

Also what made this possible was my poker calculator that as I found out displays the number of outs that I have. For example I had a pair of cards and it told me I had 20 outs, so I went ahead and called and what do ya know I won the pot.

I kept repeating to myself "you either have it or you don't", so I kept myself disciplined and gave myself an extra few seconds to think about it.

So far seeing better results than I was

I'm just about to play the Daily 'Donker'. Going to try and use that M strategy. I'm often aware of my M but don't really know what to do with it apart from approx 8 or less I know I'm shove or fold.

@jake - calculators are ok when you start out, but you should work on figuring that stuff out for yourself. It gives you a better understanding of what's going on and allows you to start developing a thought process that you follow for each hand that you can build on as your understanding grows.
@johhny - it's good to know about M, you should be constantly looking at your opponents stack sizes as well. Post results, I'm interested to know how it goes for you.

@relpraggy I'm still in the DD, bubble's just burst, sitting on an M of 5 now after foolishly trying to bluff off a guy who's was happy to call with bottom pair. Scratch that. Just doubled through as I type. M of about 12 now.

It's been good to feel like I have the freedom to open up and play some mediocre hands in position when the chips allow me and know when to tighten up. Best finish in this previously was 3rd, would be lovely to do as well tonight.

Play the 2.20 180 mans on stars. Play is terri-bad.

I'm still in the DailyDonker today too. 17/50.

gg Johhny! How'd it end up?

Ended up 7th.

Shoved AT into KK with 11 bbs.